1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image pickup system, and particularly to an image pickup system capable of acquiring two picked-up images having a parallax therebetween.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there has been known an image pickup system capable of acquiring two picked-up images having a parallax therebetween, e.g., an image pickup system which generates a stereoscopic image using two picked-up images having a parallax therebetween.
More specifically, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2012-065204 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-148865 each disclose an image pickup apparatus which picks up a stereoscopic image (three-dimensional (3D) image) using a plurality of image pickup sections. The image pickup apparatus according to each of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2012-065204 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-148865 photometrically measures an image pickup signal outputted from each of two image pickup sections and controls an exposure amount of the image pickup section based on a result of the photometric measurement (a luminance value).
For example, the image pickup apparatus according to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2012-065204 controls an image pickup exposure time related to each of the two image pickup sections so that luminance values of the image pickup signals respectively outputted from the image pickup sections are made equal to each other.
On the other hand, Japanese Patent No. 4955840 discloses a stereoscopic endoscope which generates a stereoscopic image using two picked-up images having a parallax therebetween to stereoscopically observe a fine operative site in a surgical operation of a body cavity. The stereoscopic endoscope includes a pair of left and right observation optical systems and a pair of left and right image pickup sections respectively corresponding to the observation optical systems.
Japanese Patent No. 2716936 discloses a stereoscopic endoscope which synthesizes respective left and right image signals from two image pickup devices into one system and performs image processing using one camera control unit.